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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Daily 6-Trait Writing Program by Evan-Moor ~ A review

The 6-Trait Writing program workbooks by Evan-Moor are a great way to help students practice their writing skills.

The program is developed around these six traits:

Ideas - Good writing starts with good ideas.

Organization - Good writing is organized and easy to understand.

Word choice - Good writers choose their words carefully.

Sentence Fluency - Good writing flows and uses different types of sentences.

Voice - A good writers personality is evident in their writing.

Conventions - Good writers follow the rules. Grammar, punctuation and spelling are important!

There are 125 daily lessons, divided into 24 weekly units.

For each unit, there is a teacher's lesson plan. It goes over how to most effectively teach the unit, and which traits will be the focus. Days one through four are done on reproducible worksheets. On the fifth day, there is a writing prompt to be completed on lined paper that will incorporate ideas from the earlier lessons. It all ties together nicely.

The book begins with several teacher's pages that explain the traits, how the system works, and a detailed scoring rubric for the teacher. The last page of the book provides proofreading marks to use when correcting writing.

The 6-Trait Writing Program is available for Grades 1-6. As the grade level increases, the work involved advances at an appropriate rate.

Some examples of the activities include proofreading, making better word choices, putting events in a proper order, adding details or retelling stories from another point of view.

Here is Boy One doing exercises aimed at staying on topic while writing.

Boy Two is proofreading, and taking out unnecessary details.

These Evan-Moor Workbooks are available from the Timberdoodle Company for $21.75.

If you are not familiar with the TimberDoodle company, they area great resource for homeschooling families. They offer so much! From complete curriculum, to toys and games, software, parenting and even autism resources. You can look around the website, (www.timberdoodle.com) or order their FREE catalog available through the website.

** I was given a 6-trait Daily Writing Program book in order to write an informed review about the product. I as not compensated for this review, nor am I affiliated with the company. My opinions are my own.